Apparatus for the continuous washing of lengths of textile material

ABSTRACT

In an apparatus for the continuous washing of a length of textile material, the textile material runs over several guide rolls, at least one of which is arranged below the liquid level in the washing vessel. In order to be able to skip a washing device, in a continuous plant, so that the length of material does not enter the liquid and causes contamination therein, for example, the invention provides to mount the guide element to be movable out of the vessel. Therefore, the length of material still passes around all of the guide rolls of the washing device, but in this case outside of the liquid charged into the vessel.

The invention relates to an apparatus for the continuous washing oflengths of textile material, with a vessel wherein at least one guideelement, looped around by the textile material, is arranged below theliquid level.

A large number of various constructions of devices of theabove-mentioned type has been known, arranged at all possible locationsin a continuous installation for performing the washing step necessaryat that point. Essentially, in a continuous plant for the dyeing orprinting of a textile material, washing is required after the steamingprocess to remove the unfixed dye residues; this takes place, in part,under hot conditions but essentially in the cold state. After thiswashing step, the textile material then enters a dryer. In such acontinuous plant, the printing machine or a solid-dyeing unit isarranged upstream of the steamer; the printer or dyer, in turn, has awashing device of the aforementioned type connected in front thereof,since a perfect printing or dyeing of the textile material is possibleonly if all impurities, such as also finishes and spooling oils, havebeen removed from the textile material. In case of pile-type textiles,it is additionally necessary to orient the nap uniformly prior toprinting and dyeing, respectively. All of this takes place in thewashing unit located upstream of the dyeing station; in order to fulfillthe posed tasks, this washing unit must run at a high temperature.

In order to be able to operate such a plant continuously, a leader mustbe guided around the plurality of guide rolls. After each change inbatch, but in any event with each new, altered printing procedure, sucha leader must be attached to the exiting material, for example a carpet;this leader then passes through the installation until the exiting batchhas been finally deposited in the dry state.

The leader then also serves for feeding the new batch, so that theleader is subjected to all processing steps within the continuous plant,including the dyeing or printing process. Since the material of theleader is only extremely rarely made of the fibers such as the materialto be produced, the dyes applied to the leader in the dyeing station arenot fixed in the steamer, but also, these dyes are not entirely washedout in the subsequent washing station, especially because the washingstep therein does not take place entirely in the hot state. If, now,this dried leader is reused and attached to a new batch, which is alwaysdone for economical reasons, then this always reused material alsopasses through the prewash bath which, according to its purpose, must beoperated in the hot state. This washing step to which the leader issubjected upstream of the plant causes a bleeding out of the unfixed dyestill present in the leader whereby the prewash bath is contaminated andconsequently the first few meters of the production material followingthe leader are contaminated as well. For this reason, the first fewmeters of a newly fed material are always rejects.

The problem is, of course, eliminated if the leader is in each casethoroughly laundered or if, prior to the feeding of the new productionmaterial, the installation is halted, the water of the prewash bath isreplaced, and the bath is reheated. Also, thought has been given tomaking the leader of a nonwoven mat that can be discarded. However, allof these suggestions foundered on the considerable costs for the missingproduction efficiency of the plant, for water, for energy, or theadditional expenses for such a nonwoven mat, especially since a frequentchanging of batches is a customary procedure.

The invention is based on the object of finding a solution for thisproblem, namely making it possible that the continuous plant can bepassed through, as heretofore, by a repeatedly used leader without therebeing the danger of contamination of the liquid in the prewash bath bydye residues adhering to the leader.

In order to attain this object, the invention provides that this guideelement of the prewashing device, located below the liquid level, ismounted so that it can be moved, e.g. pivoted, out of its functionalposition within the bath, to outside of the vessel. On account of thisconstruction, the prewashing bath must now be operated with the guideelement swung out whenever the installation is passed through by theleader. Although the leader will pass around all of the rollers of theprewashing bath, this will take place without the leader coming intocontact with the hot washing liquid. The hot washing liquid thus remainsclean for the subsequent carpet or the like; the liquid need not bereplaced and need not be reheated. The moving out of the guide elementis possible in case of a simple guide roller just as well as in case ofa sieve drum arranged at this location and being traversed by the flowfrom the outside toward the inside. For this purpose, it is merelynecessary to mount the bearings for the sieve drum, including thefeeding and take-off rollers for the textile material, at a traverseprovided above the bath, rather than, as heretofore, at the end wall ofthe vessel. The movements of the guide element should take placeautomatically, for example with the aid of a pressure piston-cylinderunit.

One embodiment of the apparatus of this invention is illustrated in thedrawing.

The FIGURE shows, in cross section, a sieve drum washing machine, thesieve drum 1 of which is traversed from the outside toward the inside bya flow of washing liquid. For this purpose, a level 4 is producedoutside of the sieve drum 1 by means of the pump 2 within the liquidtank 3, which pump is arranged at the end face, while the liquid thathas passed through the sieve drum 1 is drained at the open end face ofthe sieve drum into a collecting tank arranged at that location, so thatthe lowered level 5 is formed within the sieve drum. The sieve drum isenveloped by the length of textile material 6 resting with its back sideon this drum; for this purpose, the textile material is guided, comingfrom the left, over guide rolls 7-10 to the sieve drum 1 and is thenconducted via the guide rolls 11-13 to the subsequent machine, notshown. The mode of operation of the sieve drum washing machine undersuction draft is generally known so that no additional explanations aredeemed necessary.

In contrast to the conventional construction, the sieve drum is notrotatably supported in the end walls of the tank 3 but rather in aseparate holding structure, of which the traverse 14, to be providedabove the bath, is illustrated. This traverse rotatably supports notonly the guide rolls 9-12, but also the sieve drum 1. In order to beable to swing the sieve drum 1 out of the vessel 2, the traverse 14 ispivotably supported about the joint 16 attached to a flange 15. Theindividual pivotal positions of the traverse 14, together with the sievedrum, are shown in dot-dash lines. In position I, the sieve drum 1 is inthe operative arrangement within the bath for prewashing of the carpet,for example, with liquid heated to the boiling temperature. In positionII, the sieve drum 1 is swung out of the bath so that at this point intime the leader will no longer come in contact with the liquid at theheight of level 4 and accordingly cannot contaminate the bath, either.Cleaning of the sieve drum 1 is possible in a simple way in thisposition, as well as in position III.

The movement of the sieve drum into the pivotal positions I-III and backis accomplished with the aid of a pressure piston-cylinder unit 17, thepiston 18 of which engages the traverse 14 perpendicularly above theaxis of the sieve drum, while the cylinder of the unit is pivotablymounted to a trestle 19 above the washing device.

What is claimed is:
 1. An apparatus for the continuous washing of alength of textile material which comprises a vessel containing a liquidfor washing and textile material; a sieve drum, looped about by thetextile material, arranged below a liquid level in said vessel; astationary support means; a transverse pivotally mounted on said supportmeans; said sieve drum being rotatably supported by said traverse andbeing movable from an operative position within the vessel to aninoperative position out of the vessel upon swinging of said traverseabout the support means; feeding and take-off rollers operativelyassociated with the sieve drum for, respectively, feeding the length oftextile material onto and for taking off the textile material from thesieve drum, said rollers being supported on said traverse; and pumpmeans for maintaining the liquid level within said vessel; said traversebeing movable to an incline position whereby the sieve drum is arrangedabove the liquid level whereby a leader portion of the textile materialguided by said rollers will not contact the liquid and thereby avoidcontaminating the liquid during feeding of the leader portion onto saidsieve drum.
 2. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the stationarysupport means is attached to a side of said vessel.
 3. An apparatusaccording to claim 2, wherein a piston of a pressure piston-cylinderunit engages the traverse to effect pivoting of the traverse; saidpiston being secured to a tressel above said vessel.